Existing data storage management operations include independent operations that operate on user data and/or metadata. Such data storage device array control operations include, for example: (a) data consistency checks to detect and in some cases correct parity data inconsistencies; (b) array managed backup strategies; (c) logical drive rebuilds of redundancy in volume sets with failed member disks; (d) volume set initialization operations; (e) hierarchical storage management operations; (f) virtual storage automatic resource allocator operations; (g) methods of reporting when thresholds for system resource utilization have been met or exceeded, and the like. A volume set is a disk array object that most closely resembles a single logical disk when viewed by the operating environment in host computer. These operations are typically independently executed in a serial fashion by a system administrator as either foreground processes or as background processes. Procedures for performing such data management operations are known in the art of data storage system administration.
Such independently executing disk array control operations complete for processor and data storage device resources. For example, known data storage device data consistency check operations independently scan volume set media surfaces including all data and parity sectors associated with a given stripe of data in a volume set, and typically perform operations on all data bytes in those sectors to determine if parity stored for that stripe is consistent with the host data stored in the stripe. Likewise, known array managed backup operations also independently scan volume set media surfaces including all data and parity sectors contained in the volume set and perform certain operations on the data. These prior art techniques are typically limited in that if the data consistency check operation and the array backup operation are concurrently executed, multiple redundant scans of the media surfaces and associated data operations are generally performed on the same data and parity sectors in a given volume set.
With today's configured storage pool sizes not uncommonly in the multiple gigabyte or even multiple terabyte range, and with the time it takes to scan and perform common and/or unique operations on data, these known independent methods are much too inefficient from both a time and system resource perspective. Often, known independently scheduled operations require more time to complete than there are hours in a day. What is needed is a system and method for coordinating the execution of disk array control operations, such that the amount of time that is required to execute the operations is substantially reduced.